by Chisa Hutchinson

Contemporary American Theater Festival | July 2022

World Premiere

Rebecca Burgess moves into a brownstone, renovates it, and simultaneously refuses to embrace her neighbors down the hall or street. In all her gentrifying glory, Rebecca is just living her life when weird, supernatural stuff starts happening, for no reason she can think of. Of course, the fact that she can’t think of the reason is probably why it’s happening.

“You know that point in a movie when something scary is about to happen and you can’t help it, you shut your eyes tight, both excited and terrified for what will come next? That’s a hard effect to achieve in a play where wide-eyed closeups and quick edits aren’t an option, but in Whitelisted, a world premiere now playing at the Contemporary American Theater Festival, playwright Chisa Hutchinson and director Kristin Horton achieve that same heart-pounding sense of dread and anticipation.” DC Theater Arts

"Whitelisted is the keystone of this year’s festival.” Chisa Hutchinson’s Brilliance on Display in Contemporary American Theater Festival’s WHITELISTED, Broadway World

Scenic Designer | David Barber
Costume Designer | Moyenda Kulemeka
Lighting Designer | D.M. Wood
Sound Designer | Mark Van Hare
Intimacy Choreographer | Cara Rawlings
Stage Manager | Lindsay Eberly

Cast | Kate MacCluggage | Carlo Alban | Valerie Lewis | Derek Long | Kirby Davis

A community-engaged play

By Lisa Biggs

Joseph Walker Williams Center | 2017

After/Life is a living history play that tells the story of women and girls who participated in the 1967 Detroit rebellion. The production was part of a series of commemorative events in July 2017 in the neighborhood where the uprising began – at Rosa Parks Boulevard and Clairmount.

The performance featured actors Johnathan Finch, Brandon A. Wright, Kristy Allen, Nick Stockwell, Kyle Sammy, Coda Boyce, Deborah Chenault Green, Shavon McSwine, and Shannon McGlone

Read about the process on Howlround: After/Life Tells the Untold Stories of the Detroit '67 Rebellion

Watch interview with Lisa Biggs and poet Deborah Chenault Green on PBS: American Black Journal

“As long as our stories about the ‘67 Detroit Rebellion overlook the knowledge and experiences of women and girls, they will continue to circulate half-truths and false representations of the city, the causes of the uprising, and the world Detroiters inhabit today." — Lisa Biggs, "The Untold Stories of Women in the 1967 Detroit Rebellion and its Aftermath," The Conversation

“Hopscotch, tag, hide and go get it,
Baseball in the alley, nowhere to hit it... 
Hot dogs, Kool-Aid, potato chips
Block parties, swingin’, dancin’ in the streets to
’My Girl,’ ‘ Heatwave,’ just boppin’ to the beat...
Ms. Harrison’s beauty shop, 
Henry’s pig feet in a jar
Playin’ tag, hot tamale man, catch me if you can
Music heard all night long from the Calumet Bar
The innocence and beauty of 12th Street
Before the riot. Before the community died.” — 12th Street (Pre-1967) by Deborah Chenault Green, featured in AFTER/LIFE

Is a multimedia performance installation event of radical intimacy and surrender by inviting an audience to experience a bath with a black woman.

CONCEIVED AND PERFORMED BY TANISHA CHRISTIE

2015-2018

“THERE ARE FEW SPACES AS PRIVATE AS THE BATH. IT IS HERE I HAVE PONDERED THE COMPLEXITY OF MY EMOTIONS, MY FEMININITY, MY SORROW AND BLACKNESS UNMEDIATED BY OTHERS. IT IS THE PLACE WHERE I BECOME INTIMATE WITH MY RAGE AND ANGUISH. IT IS HERE THAT I REPLENISH AND REFUEL. WITH THIS WORK, I AM INVITING OTHERS INTO THIS SPACE AND INTO A CONVERSATION OF VULNERABILITY. I’M CURIOUS TO KNOW HOW OTHERS ARE FEELING AND BEING IN LIGHT CURRENT EVENTS - BEYOND SOCIAL MEDIA. IS IT POSSIBLE FOR US TO EXPERIENCE OURSELVES AND OTHERS UNMEDIATED? IS SKIN-COLOR A BARRIER TO COMPASSION? CAN WE RESPECT EACH OTHER’S SORROW? IS THE EXPRESSION OF GRIEF ONLY OF VALUE IN A CONSENSUS OF OPINION? OR IS IT ONLY TO BE CONSUMED? HAVE WE COLLECTIVELY MOURNED OUR INABILITY TO BE HUMANE TO ONE ANOTHER? #THESKINIMIN” - Tanisha Christie

MEDIUMS: PHOTOGRAPHY / VIDEO / AUDIO / INSTALLATION / COLLAGE / PARTICIPATORY PERFORMANCE

WITH CONSPIRATORS:

JD URBAN - VIDEO/AUDIO/PHOTOGRAPHY/BUILDER/DESIGN

CLAUDIA CINQUEGRANA - BUILDER/DESIGN ASST.

STACEY BERRY - DRESS DESIGN / FABRICATION

DRESS FABRIC COLLAGE: THE ARTIST

__

KRISTIN HORTON - DIRECTION CONTRIBUTION

JASON MINNIS, EDSON SEAN, CASEY STRATTON - MUSIC CONTRIBUTION

LIZ LERMAN, LIZ WOLFF - MOVEMENT/DANCE CONTRIBUTION

DANIEL ALEXANDER JONES, DEB O, SUE MAKKOO, ADAM HARRISON, ELISE TIRELLI, CHAZZ PADILLA - PROJECT CONTRIBUTION

ITERATION #1, #2 AND #3 @ BROOKLYN ARTS EXCHANGE (BAX), BROOKLYN, NY (2016, 2017)

ITERATION #4 @ THE SECOND WARD FOUNDATION, HUDSON, NY (2018)

By Chiori Miyagawa

Project Y | Women in Theatre Festival | 2017

World Premiere

With choreography by Sonoko Kawahara

"Even though it [2016 election] was a national loss, I kept thinking about it as personal," says Chiori Miyagawa. "Being American wasn't a birthright to me. I chose it. I was born in Japan and I had to give up my citizenship, but I just felt nationless after the election. I began writing haiku as a way to let out bursts of anger. I sent one to the founder of the festival and said, 'This is what I think I am going to write about.'"

a man bumped into me
my wish-fulfilling jewel
span away forever

At the start of In the Line, the protagonist is waiting in line to vote, but a man bumps into her and she drops her "wish-fulfilling jewel." She spends the rest of the play trying to find it. "I based that idea on something from Tibetan Buddhism," Miyagawa says. The missing object, which is never clearly defined, can represent many things: "our hope for the future of this country, our trust in humanity, sanity, all of those things I am questioning," she says. —-from “Creating Art That’s Timely and Timeless,” by Raven Snook, TDF.org

Featuring: Sol Marina Crespo,* Christina Liang,* Sade Namei,* Kristen Kittel,* Ashley Jones, Vichet Chum,* Daniel Petzold,* Madalyn Pedone, Monica Rounds, Tomoko Tokugaki, Norihiro Maruta, Kaho Furuta, and Patricia Cancio

"Kristin Horton’s well-calibrated direction results in affective performances from the cast and yields visually precise physical staging on the bare space.  This stagecraft is complemented by Sonoko Kawahara’s accomplished choreography with its arresting tableaus, freezes and glorious movement, especially a slow motion sequence at a rock club.

In the Line is a vibrant and theatrically realized mediation on contemporary life, with all of its randomness and surprising degrees of separation." - Darryl Reilly, Theater Scene

An Event. By Chisa Hutchinson

Working Theater | Five Boroughs One City | 2015-present

Livestreaming Conversation About Community Engagement and Theatremaking in Community for Working Theater’s Five Boroughs/One City Project—Sun, May 10 --on HowlRound TV.

The Five Boroughs | One City Project launched in the fall of 2014 with commissions of 5 teams of writers, directors and installation artists, supported by designers, dramaturgs and community liaisons. Each team’s goal is to create a piece of theatre rooted in a neighborhood in each of the 5 boroughs of New York by engaging a specific community as both source and resource in the creative process. The work being created is for, inspired by and in response to each community.

STATEN ISLAND

Playwright Chisa Hutchinson and director Kristin Horton with the help of dramaturg Theresa M. Davis developed an interactive event called "Breaking Bread" that explores family, community and food on Staten Island. Developmental workshops have been presented at the Abingdon Theater (May 2015) and the Snug Harbor Cultural Center in Staten Island (March 2015; February 2016).

"Breaking Bread" invites the audience to an intimate dinner with an Italian-American family during which the daughter arrives with her African American boyfriend, but in a formal twist the Italian Americans are played by African American actors and the African American boyfriend is played by an Italian American actor. The play is designed to disrupt racial perceptions and stereotypes and to generate dialogue between communities in Staten Island which are deeply segregated by race, political positioning, and economic background. The Staten Island Expressway dividing the North and South shores of the island is referred to by local residents as the Mason-Dixon Line.  Each Staten Island performance of Breaking Bread will be hosted by a local resident or business who will act as cultural ambassadors for the audience. The inclusion of an actual catered Italian dinner for the audience and the cast as part of the action of the play will also aid in fostering a welcoming and hospitable atmosphere which we hope will encourage participation in a potentially charged dialogue following each performance.

Conceived in the wake of the death of Staten Island resident Eric Garner and the grand jury decision to not indict officer Pantaleo, the project aims to foster an open conversation about racial perceptions and stereotypes. It is further intended to build social and cultural bridges between two disparate communities of working people - in Staten Island: the primarily Caucasian blue collar Irish and Italian American communities on the south shore and the more racially diverse populations on the north shore.  In both content and form, Breaking Bread is designed to disrupt inherited notions of social and cultural hierarchy. The reverse race casting challenges the viewers to consider (or reconsider) preconceptions of racial and cultural stereotypes. And in the play itself each character embodies in complicated ways some aspect of American society’s conflicting narratives of racial equality and white privilege. 

Abingdon Cast:

Celia | Robbie McCauley
Gio | Arthur French
Vince | Nathan Hinton
Angela | Shauna Miles
Nicole | Ngozi Anyanwu
Sabur | Benjamin L. Myers

Design Consultant | Deb O

Photos by Tuda Sarian

by Chisa Hutchinson

Contemporary American Theater Festival | 2014

World Premiere

"With Humor, 'Dead And Breathing' Dives Into End-of-Life Struggles," by Elizabeth Blair, NPR Weekend Edition

Reviews:

"In director Kristn Horton's world premiere production - a funny and spirited tale about assisted suicide." - Washington Post

"An engaging, heartfelt exploration on death and the need for redemption....Directed by Kristin Horton, Dead and Breathing requires a bit of willing suspension of disbelief on everyone's part, but Horton navigates its stretching of credulity quite well."  - DC Metro Arts

"If you are looking for an exhilarating, raucous, hilarious, roller-coaster ride of a show, a genuine gem from start to finish, you must drop whatever you’re doing and run to see Chisa Hutchinson’s Dead and Breathing. Forget the speed cameras—you can pay The Man later." - MD Theatre Guide

"The question is posed in the first few minutes of Dead and Breathing: Can Carolyn, a wealthy black widow dying by inches of cancer, persuade Veronika, her at-home hospice nurse, to kill her? It won't be easy, as this funny, insightful play establishes...I was going to end with the caution that this is not exactly a feel-good show, but the number of theatergoers I saw walking out, obviously feeling good, has made me reconsider. I guess it is, despite the darkness of the subject." - Broadwayworld.com

"A darkly comic Kevorkan riff...From the writing to the acting to Luciana Stecconi’s economical but effective set design to the delicate touch of Kristin Horton’s stage direction, CATF’s world premiere production of Chisa Hutchinson’s 'Dead and Breathing' is a classic piece of 'think theater." - Communities Digital News.

Scenic Designer | Luciana Stecconi
Costume Designer | Trevor Brown
Lighting Designer | Tony Galaska
Sound Designer | Eric Shimelonis
Dramaturg | Theresa M. Davis

Cast | Lizan Mitchell | N.L. Graham

Photos by Seth Freeman

by Sophokles | translated by Anne Carson

Design by Raphael Mishler

New York University | Gallatin School | 2016

The blind prophet Teiresias to Kreon:

to err is human but to persist in error is imprudent unlucky and just stupid
yield, Kreon
that pile of rot that was the son of Oidipous
the boy is dead stop killing him

Teiresias speaks of the body of the dissident Polyneikes whom Kreon has left unburied for “the dogs to chew” outside the city. Spoiler alert: by the end of the play, there will be more bodies for Kreon to contend with including Antigone and those of his son and wife.

It’s been more than two millennia since Sophokles wrote Antigone and the play has seen no shortage of productions. Just a few weeks ago, the Onassis Cultural Center here in New York hosted an international Antigone festival with adaptations from Syria to Ferguson.

Why Antigone again?

During fall 2016 I've had the great privilege of taking up this very question while co-teaching the seminar “Antigone(s): Ancient Greece/Performance Now” with classicist Laura Slatkin. Many of the cast members for this production are also in the class. Together, the course and rehearsal process have allowed a deep investigation into Antigone’s complexities and the many readings and interpretations the play has inspired.

A particularly illuminating class visit by fellow Gallatin faculty member and legal scholar Vasuki Nesiah offered insights into the ways the play stages a debate about democracy and in particular, “the tension between the notion of democracy as a ‘form of government’ and ‘democracy as a form of social and political life.’” According to Nesiah, rather than closure with the past, Antigone’s action represents “an effort to open the space for contestation in the present” thus serving as an example of dynamic participation and engagement in the social and political spheres.

Citizenship, belonging, changeability, and stability. Who gets status in a city or state? What constitutes good citizenship? Who gets deemed an enemy? Who gets to decide and how? What does democracy look like? These are the on-going questions that animated our rehearsal process, and the ones from which we invited the audience to live in with us as they engaged with our production of Anne Carson’s new translation.

Photos by Em Watson and Melanie Flanagan.

by Anne Carson

New York University | Gallatin School | 2013

A staged reading with
Anne Carson (Chorus), Judith Butler (Kreon), Anne Waldman (Tiresias), Beth Pollack (Antigone), Denis Butkus (Haemon), Emily Young (Ismene), Paul Coffey (Guard) and Laura Slatkin (Eurydice)

followed by
A conversation: “Antigone Now” with
Judith Butler, Anne Carson, Robert Currie, A.B. Huber, Emanuela Bianchi and Jacques Lezra. Moderated by Laura Slatkin

“The NYU Antigonick rendered the “Antigone experience” visceral and immediate. Without choreography (save for the wandering Nick) or sets (just chairs and mikes), the drama’s speeches became its primary form of action. As someone in the discussion observed, there was an eerie moment of group response when the sentence “It’s Friday afternoon” was spoken. The audience reaction was communal recognition of the amusing coincidence of it actually being a Friday, one particular Friday afternoon in the winter of 2013. But following the chuckle came a certain awareness that “time” had lost its familiar outlines, so that we were simultaneously in the imagined past of the play’s setting; the moment of its adaptation by Carson; as well as in the dated present of its performance. “There goes Antigone to be buried alive”: Theatrically speaking we were momentarily transported to the metaphysical dimension of “mythic time,” the unclocked dimension of tragedy—a place where “Before and After,” as Lincoln Kirstein put it, “are loose concepts in relation to an Order which permanently is.” – Mary Maxwell, “Questions and Comments from the Audience,” Arion: A Journal of the Humanities and the Classics, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Spring/Summer 2013)

Co-sponsored by Gallatin’s Classics and the Contemporary Series; NYU Department of Comparative Literature; NYU Humanities Initiative

New York University | Gallatin School | 2018

By Anne Washburn
with music by Michael Friedman

Co-Director | Ben Steinfeld
Music Director | Andrew Goehring
Scenic Design | D’Vaughn Agu
Costume Design | Becky Bodurtha
Lighting Design | Jacob Zedek

What will endure when the cataclysm arrives —when the grid fails, society crumbles, and we’re faced with the task of rebuilding? How does a society survive through its stories after the death of the technologies that embodied their narratives? Anne Washburn’s dark comedy propels us forward nearly a century, following a new civilization stumbling into its future. Mr. Burns is a fascinating and theatrical exploration of how the pop culture of one era might evolve into the mythology of another.

Cast:  Cheryle Chong, Sylvia Coopersmith, Mouli Ghosh, Kate He, Liam Pitt, Polina Pittell, Nic Sanchez, Emily Trend, and Katie Zimmerman.

A devised work adapted from William Shakespeare

New York University | Gallatin School | 2014

"A Woman's Might: Rethinking Rape and Power Through Shakespeare" by Eileen Reynold, NYU Stories

Watch: "I am Lucrece: Rethinking Sexual Violence" - How might Shakespeare's poem “The Rape of Lucrece” shed light on current conversations about “rape culture” in the United States and on college campuses? New York Magazine writer Vanessa Grigoriadis, activist, Columbia graduate, and SAFER board member Marybeth Seitz-Brown, and Gallatin Associate Faculty Member Cyd Cipolla discuss the movement against campus sexual assault and what it tells us about women's voices and continued silencing in the public sphere.

About the Production

Inspired by Livy and Ovid, Shakespeare’s epic poem tells the story of Lucrece, the wife of a Roman officer, Collatine, who in boasting of his wife’s chastity and “peerless beauty” to his fellow officers – including the dissolute Sextus Tarquin, son of the king – seals her fate. Consumed by jealously and lust, Tarquin rapes Lucrece. Unable to bear the shame, Lucrece kills herself, an act that leads to Tarquin’s banishment, the collapse of the royal family and the establishment of the Roman Republic.

Often a rehearsal process begins with the presentation of a directorial concept and sketches of costumes and scenic renderings from designers. Our process did not begin with pre-conceived ideas about the poem or how we might go about transforming it into a theatrical event. Instead, the rehearsal process began with the poem itself and the myriad of questions that would follow. Throughout our rehearsal process we had the opportunity to collaborate with our designers and composer in the room as we interrogated the text and experimented with its relationship to form.

Throughout the process we dove into the text and identified images and language that inspired and challenged us. We explored the tensions between expressive and literal staging and the ways we might collectively write a performance in time and space. Many questions drove our process: How is Lucrece and her story constructed? Is Lucrece the victim of a patriarchal system or a model of resistance? What is our relationship to Lucrece today? What can her story illuminate about power and structure? What you see is the result of the collaborative process and investigation that unfolded over the course of the semester.

Company | Rachel Hilson | Elisabeth Gunawan Ho | Gwen Hornig | Alec Seymour | Allison Wick

Music | Mark Bruckner

Text & Movement Coach | Sheila Bandyopadhyay

Costume Design | Whitney Locher

Scenic & Lighting Design | Raphael Mishler

Props Master | Robert Stevenson

Production Stage Manager | Kaitlin Nemeth

Assistant Stage Manager | Radhika Rajkumar

By Chisa Hutchinson
Lyrics by Sarah Gancher
Music by Elliot Goldman
Produced by Freedome Bradley

Commissioned by NYC Summerstage | 2011

World Premiere 

"Tunde's Trumpet” is written by Chisa Hutchinson and directed by Kristin Horton, two exceptionally talented individuals who created a dynamic, imaginative and playful world peopled by puppets, jazz musicians, and spirits." - Charity Social

The story is simple enough: a mischievous boy named Tunde grounds himself in the study of music. He works around distractions, past laziness, and through frustration, doubt, and jealousy to become an accomplished trumpeter who makes his (hitherto exasperated) parents proud.

In this version of the story, however, distractions, laziness, frustration, doubt and jealousy are actual characters as real as Tunde. And of course there’s music. Lots and lots of music. Which is how this simple story becomes an epic tale. A children’s book on steroids set to music that adults will want to shake their booties to. Like if Fela Kuti lived on Sesame Street.

Producer | Freedome Bradley

Company | Chris Myers | Ayesha Ngaujah | Rory Lipede | Tanisha Christie | Darnell Wickham

Puppet Design | Cory Antiel

Scenic Design | James Hunting

Music Direction | Luqman Brown

Lighting Design | Christian DeAngelis

Stage Manager | Chris Rinaldi

Assistant Director |  Raphael Mishler

by William Shakespeare

New York University | Gallatin School | 2013

Scenic & Lighting Design | Jiyoun Chang
Costume Design | Meg Zeder
Fight Choreography | Robert Westley
Voice & Movement Coach | Sheila Bandyopadhyay
Sound | Mark Bruckner 

A fellow director once said to me that the only way to know Hamlet is to act one’s way through it. In the spring of 2013, several members of the cast and I began working on the play in a course dedicated to exploring it on its feet as means of interrogating and activating the text. One of the great challenges with such a play is dealing with all of the baggage that comes with it. It seems everyone has some idea or opinion about it. But, what happens when you really confront the text? What happens when you get inside of it? Our process focused on navigating the experience of thought in a complicated play where soliloquies, speeches and scenes take us directly into the heart of problems and questions.

“Who’s there?” The first two words of the play form one of its central questions. Hamlet is very much a play about questions and problems. What is the right action to take? When is it ok to act? Questions concerning the nature of humanity loom large with outcomes concerning life and soul.  Finally, Shakespeare complicates and energizes these problems in the “where” of the play by setting them inside a poisoned court. There are no easy answers, but in the words of Hamlet in his advice to the players, it is our hope that the work might “hold, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.”

A preview of the Climate Change Theater Action presented at the NYU Gallatin Climate Change Conference on Sept. 15, 2017

Featuring plays by: Angella Emurwon (Uganda), Mīria George (New Zealand/Māori), MaryAnn Karanja (Kenya), Amahl Khouri (Germany/Jordan), Kasaya Manulevu (Fiji), Shahid Nadeem (Pakistan), Nathan Yungerberg (US), Chantal Bilodeau (US/Canada), Lynn Rosen (US), Katie Pearl (US)

Performed by: Leila Buck,* Sade Namei,* Nathan Hinton,* Christina Liang,* and Monica Rounds

by William Shakespeare

Riverside Theatre in the Park | 2013

"Riverside Theatre in the Park is not in the park this year; it's been moved to West High's auditorium due to flooding. However, the company has adapted well to the new space, and Riverside's production of Hamlet, directed by Kristin Horton, retains the quality expected of both the festival and of Shakespeare's most famous tragedy...Horton's attention to the emotional realities of the story takes what could easily stray into exaggerated melodrama and gives it an intimate, realistic feel. In this she follows Hamlet's advice to the players: "suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature." The company's commitment to naturalism, and the close exploration of the character's relationships, makes this a deeply touching and very thought-provoking Hamlet. With this approach, characters who seem preposterous on the page can be very sympathetic." - Iowa Theatre

"The current production of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” is worth your time, whether you know the play well or are experiencing it for the first time. Under the direction of Kristin Horton, the cast performs a largely unadorned version of this most famous of plays, highlighting the Bard’s language and the story’s emotional resonance." -- Hooplanow.com 

Photos by Bob Goodfellow

A Dream Act Union Project | 2011-2013

Written collectively by Mia Chung, Jessica Litwak, Chiori Miyagawa, Saviana Stanescu and Andrea Thome

DREAM ACTS has been developed over the last year, supported by the generosity of Lark Play Development Center, New York Theatre Workshop, INTAR, Re/Union Company, NYU Gallatin, and New Generations Theatre Ensemble and a community of devoted artists.

PROJECT HISTORY

DREAM ACTS at Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
SUNDAY, MARCH 10th, 2013
A staged reading and panel discussion presented by NYU Office of Global Services and the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts

Imagine that you don’t have a country. It doesn’t matter if you believe you’re American,  because no one else believes you—not potential employers, not banks that issue student loans, not the government. There is no way to become legally American. You don’t exist. Worse, you are hunted for deportation. You love this country, but the country does not love you back.

In DREAM ACTS, five undocumented teens—from Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Turkey, and Ukraine—meet the extraordinary challenge of living ordinary lives under the radar. Each story is moving and urgent.  Some are funny.  Others are tragic.  Through these characters, we learn about the DREAM Act and the secret lives led by undocumented youth.

PROJECT HISTORY

DREAM ACTS at Skirball Center for the Performing Arts
SUNDAY, MARCH 10th, 2013
A staged reading and panel discussion presented by NYU Office of Global Services and the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts

Cast | Carlo Albán | Heidi Armbruster | Jackie Chung | Rachel Holmes | Ryan Shams
Stage Manager | Jennifer Birge
Line Producer | Amanda Feldman

The read was followed by a panel discussion featuring: 
Alejandra Rincon, author, Undocumented Immigrants and Higher Education; Dan H. Berger, Esq., Curran & Berger LLP; the playwrights and performers; and undocumented students eligible for proposed DREAM Act benefits. The panel was moderated by playwright Saviana Stanescu and introduced by David B. Austell, Ph.D, Assistant Vice President and Director, Office of Global Services, and Associate Professor of International Education, the Steinhardt School.

DREAM ACTS at HERE’s Spring Artist Lodge
March 23-25, 2012

Photos: Alban Andreu

Cast | Neimah Djourabchi | Anna Kull | Ray Lucas | Rory Lipede | Tiffany Villarin
Consulting Dramaturg | Suzy Fay
Lighting Designer | Raphael Mishler
Costume Designer | Savana Leveille
Stage Manager | Kate Rourke
Assistant Producer | Ann Marie Dorr
Project Assistant | Nicole Sandry

Re/Union Company and Immigrant Artists and Scholars in New York presented the panel: DREAM ACTS: The Role of Theatre in Social Change

The panel featured DREAM-eligible undocumented youth Yelky Ramos and Nataly Lopez and special guests: Thanu Yakupitiyage (DREAM Fellowship Coordinator, New York Immigration Coalition), Carlo Albán (theatre/film artist, author of the autobiographical solo show “Intringulis”, about his life as an undocumented immigrant), Marcy Arlin (artistic director of Obie-winner Immigrant Theater Project, CUNY professor), Meiyin Wang (associate producer of “Under the Radar” Festival and Symposium in New York). Moderated by playwright Saviana Stanescu.

February 10, Staged Reading at INTAR

Cast |  Darius Homayoun | Anna Kull | Rory Lipede | Jennifer Lim | Gio Perez

January 16, 2012 – Workshop at NYU Gallatin

Cast | Carlo Albán | Heidi Armbruster | Jackie Chung | Taifa Harris | Amir Darvish

December 21, 2011 – Workshop at La Mama Experimental Theatre

Cast | Carlo Albán | Amir Darvish | Rachel Holmes | Lanna Joffrey | Maria Christina Oliveras

October 21, 2011 – Workshop at Lark Play Development Center

June 26, 2011 Workshop at New York Theatre Workshop

by William Shakespeare

Riverside Theatre in the Park  | 2012

"Powerfully staged...Horton has a history of sinking her teeth into much of Shakespeare's meatier work -- in recent years she has directed such "problem" plays as Measure for Measure and The Taming of the Shrew for Riverside Theatre. She approaches these plays with a very honest, exploratory tone, keen on asking the hard questions inherent in these fine but problematic pieces of work." - Rob Trainor, Iowa Theatre

"This production is a success because Horton and her actors delve into the complexities of the play and fully exploit its humor and pathos." - Cedar Rapids Gazette 

Photos by Bob Goodfellow

An Antigone | Adapted from Sophocles

A new play commission by Jen Silverman 

New York University | Gallatin School | 2012

Scenic & Lighting Design | Jiyoun Chang
Costume Design | Meg Zeder
Music | Mark Bruckner with original song by Emma Schlamme

The Theater at Gallatin mainstage serves as an opportunity for Gallatin students and recent graduates to collaborate with faculty and professional guest artists on challenging projects. In 2012, in conjunction with the interdisciplinary seminar Antigone(s): Ancient Greece/Performance Now, co-taught by Professor Laura Slatkin and myself, we engaged with the challenge of activating an ancient play in a contemporary landscape. Inspired by Gallatin's Convocation discussions on Sophocles’ Antigone, as well as the many questions raised in the seminar, we re-framed Sophocles' dialectic in an illuminating new adaptation written by guest artist Jen Silverman for our students at Gallatin.

Since the conditions of antiquity are lost to us, rather than attempt to recreate how an Athenian audience might have experienced Antigone we sought inspiration from the ancient traditions of the theater and used them as a departure point rather than a means to an end. Although Silverman’s adaptation remains faithful to the majority of the events in Sophocles’ Antigone, it departs from the original in a few significant ways. 

First, it casts the characters much younger. In this version they are children rebuilding their world in the aftermath of civil war. This alters the key relationships: Creon and Antigone become cousins (instead of uncle and niece), and Creon and Haemon become brothers (instead of father and son). Ismene also takes the place of Eurydice in order to raise the stakes in the final body count. Second, it conflates the roles of the chorus, messengers and guards (Franklin, Rat and Runt), imagining them as a new chorus of the “common” servants undergoing their own journey through the play.

Finally, as Silverman eloquently writes, “This adaptation is rooted in the permeating milieu of fear and suspicion that feels most relevant in post-9/11 America. The question at stake is how far will we go, as a society to feel safe in our homes? What freedoms will we sacrifice for peace and stability? While this is no real departure from Sophocles’ text, it is a re-focusing that becomes the strong beating heart of this particular adaptation, and one more angle into the original story.”

by William Shakespeare

New York University | Gallatin School | 2011

About the Production:

Like the words that construct the play, the world of Measure is full of ambiguity and double meaning. One of Shakespeare’s most problematic and complex plays, Measure is filled with dense language that is often hard to pin down. It’s in these places of ambiguity and complexity that we find our ways as actors and directors. Words tell us how characters think, construct their worldviews and make meaning. Words knock up against each other as they are used or misused purposefully. The Constable Elbow can’t seem to get his words right when he accuses Master Froth of insulting his wife; in this scene Shakespeare tells us something about how to listen to the rest of the play and participate in its game. The scenes that follow between Isabella and Angelo are filled with double meaning. They may use the same language, but they mean very different things.

Nothing is what it seems in Shakespeare’s Vienna - characters change places, appear or reappear in disguise and bodies, both dead and alive, are switched. As a way to further investigate the relationship between seeming and being the production featured an all-female cast of Gallatin students and recent alumnae as well as purposeful double casting of many parts.

by Jason Grote

New York University | Gallatin School | 2010

An Orientalist fantasia and post-­modern exploration of The Arabian Nights’ complex genealogy investigating the roots and history of Orientalisim and attendant cultural appropriation of stories.

The cuckolded King Shahriyar is marrying a new bride every night and beheading her the next morning. As unrest spreads in the Sultanate, his vizier's daughter Scheherazade hatches a plan: she will offer herself as a bride and seduce the king with stories that leave him hanging on every word. She weaves such tales as "Sinbad the Sailor" and "Aladdin and His Magic Lamp" with interventions from Borges, Flaubert, and Alan and Dahna -- an American Jewish man and a Palestinian woman who have fallen in love in millennial New York City. Shahriyar becomes Alan and Scheherazade becomes Dahna as the worlds mingle and inform one another. 
 

Cast | Amir Darvish | William Franke | Sheila Bandyopadhyay | Beth Ann Pollack | Ryan Weldon | Willie Almack

Divadlo na Zábradlí, Prague, CZ | 2010

New York University | Gallatin School | 2009

CAST
Joseph K | Jade Hawk
Chorus | Willie Almack | Nicolas Borenstein | Nick Glastonbury | Kristen Kittel | Larisa Shaterian | Hannah Utt

CREATIVE AND PRODUCTION STAFF
Set Design | Peter Ksander
Lighting Design (US) | S. Benjamin Farrar
Lighting Design (CZ) | Johanna-Mai Vihalem
Costume Design | Meg Zeder
Original Music | Marcie Grambeau

Cellist | Jeremy Lamb
Violin | Marcie Grambeau

Movement Consultant | Sheila Bandyopadhyay
Assistant Director | Miriam Tobin
Documentation | Christopher Cartmill
Stage Manager | Neal Kowalsky
Assistant Stage Manager | Elizabeth Connerat
Production Assistant | Rachel Baldock
Administrative Producer | Leah Hamos

Theater Manager | Jennifer Birge            

by Christopher Cartmill

Commissioned by The Lied Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln, Nebraska | 2009

Cast: LeRoy McClain, David Strathairn, Teddy Cañez, Annie Henk, Sasu Weh, Kathryn Layng, Jeremy Kendall, Marie Teresa Creasey and Renee Sans Souci

Spanning four centuries and through the eyes of a Ponca leader, a Sudanese refugee, a French Trapper, a Mennonite pioneer, a Civil War Soldier, a Spanish conquistador, and others HOME LAND explores the landscape of the human heart and urges us towards a place called home.

"Reading has Impact" by Larry L. Kubert, Lincoln Journal Star

"

by William Shakespeare

Riverside Theatre in the Park | 2009

"Directed by Kristin Horton, Richard III packs a punch that may just leave you breathless." - River Cities Reader

"An impressive night of professional theatre in a beautiful and unique setting." - Iowa Theatre

"The true highlight of the performance is the nightmare sequence late in the play that finds the ghosts of people he has murdered haunting Richard just before he goes into battle. Simply yet brilliantly executed, the scene is among the most memorable ever staged in the Shakespeare Festival’s 10 seasons." - Cedar Rapids Gazette

"Director Kristin Horton sets this play in a film noir style, which fits the brutality and dark humor of her vision...The atmosphere is what transforms Richard III from a well-written, well-performed play to a night of theatrical magic. It’s a great choice for Riverside’s tenth annual Shakespeare Festival, and the energy and talent of the cast will keep you on the edge of your seat." - Corridor Buzz.Com 

Photos by Bob Goodfellow

by Chisa Hutchinson

Lark Play Development Center | 2008

Inspired by the 2003 murder of a lesbian teenager in Newark, NJ, SHE LIKE GIRLS is the story of two inner-city high school girls who fall in love in a dangerously homophobic climate. The play was part of the Lark's 2007 Playwrights' Week festival; the Lark presented a BareBones® workshop production the following spring. 

Cast: Audrey Esparza, Kimberley Gregory, Amelia Workman, Taifa Harris, Jennifer Joplin, Jared McNeill and Maria-Christina Oliveras. 

BareBones® are simply staged, fully rehearsed public presentations of plays in the final stages of development. A BareBones® is the culmination of a comprehensive development strategy and 100 hours of rehearsal in advance of the public presentations.

by Donald Margulies

Riverside Theatre | 2007

Cast | Jody Hovland | Shamis Beckly

“Absorbing, engrossing…Nothing is more satisfying than an absorbing story, skillfully told. And nothing is more exciting than actors who can bring the story to life in full dimensional power. Riveside Theatre’s production of “Collected Stories” by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Donald Margulies possess both elements to a high degree. The result is an engrossing evening at the theater…much credit must go to director Kristin Horton for her concept and development of this powerful and complex play.” – Cedar Rapids Gazette

“Riverside Theatre’s incarnation of Pulitzer-Prize-winner Donald Margulies’ play breathes through its actors and simple but intimate set. It’s hard to imagine seeing it anywhere unlike the small venue at 213 N. Gilbert. St….The story is strong and human. The characters don’t stream in and out of tragedy; the drama comes from the interactions.” – Daily Iowan

Photos by Bob Goodfellow

By Jeannine Coulombe

Workhaus Collective | 2009

World Premiere

CastShelly Anne - CAROLYN POOL
Frank/Ensemble - JOHN REIDLINGER
Monica/Ensemble - KATHERINE KUPIECKI
Sherry - RENEE RODEN

CrewSound Design - ANTON JONES Costume Design - CARSON KREITZER

“Workhaus is the single greatest source of new play production in the Twin Cities.” --Graydon Royce, Star Tribune

"Playwright Tries to Focus in Distracted World," by Marianne Combs, Minnestoa Public Radio

by Victoria Stewart

Commissioned by Commonweal Theatre | 2006

World Premiere

A modern day adaptation of Ibsen's the Lady From the Sea.

Photos by Janis Martin

by Michael Healey

Riverside Theatre | 2005

Photos by Bob Goodfellow

Riverside Theatre | 2004

by Steven Dietz

Still Life with Iris is a fantastical adventure which centers on a little girl's search for the simplest of things: home. Iris lives with her mom in the land of Nocturno—a magical place in which the workers make, by night, all of the things we see in the world by day. Also, in Nocturno, memories do not reside in people's minds but instead are kept in their coats (called 'Past Coats'). The rulers of Nocturno, the Great Goods, are determined to have the "best" of everything on their island—and therefore take Iris away from her home and bring her to Great Island to be their daughter. To ease the pain of this separation, they remove her Past Coat, leaving her with no memory of her home or her family. All that remains of Iris' past is a single button from her coat. Using the button as a clue, Iris joins with friends she meets on her journey—Annabel Lee (a young woman from the sea) and Mozart (the composer, age 11)—and frees herself from the Great Goods.

“Director Kristin Horton keeps the action moving and the suspense building. In a world where electronic games and viceos dominate the free time and minds of many youngsters, a live play such as this is proof that entertainment are available besides the canned variety on a small screen. “Still Life With Iris” is a children’s play, but ia has much to offer the adults who come along. “ – Cedar Rapids Gazette

by William Shakespeare

Riverside Theatre in the Park | 2004

“Impeccable…Director Kristin Horton has created a colorful, bawdy Veienna and builds entire scenes simply –changing lighting and updending a table, for instance, to create a dark prison. Her scenes move quickly: the first hour and a half fly by...Riverside's stellar production reinforces Shakespeare's perennial relevance and leaves its audience with not only beautiful memories of a night a the theater but also a powerful discussion topic for the ride home. Well done, Riverside." - Cedar Rapids Gazette 

Photos by Bob Goodfellow

Three Plays by W.B. Yeats

Cathleen ní Houlihan 
The Dreaming of the Bones 
Purgatory

The University of Iowa | 2003

by Joseph Ferron Hiatt

Iowa New Play Festival | The University of Iowa | 2002

A play exploring the racial and economic implications of the Yellow Fever epidemic in Philadelphia, 1793. The production won the IRAM Award for outstanding direction of a new play.